Queer Culture

Van Den Bergh, N. (2003). Getting a piece of the pie: Cultural competence for GLBT employees at the workplace. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 8(2-3), 55-73.

Bergh’s text emphasizes the importance of queer employees, addressing the discrimination they face as a result of the lack of queer-related knowledge in the workplace. Bergh believes that queer employees deserve protection, inclusion, and equity (PIE) in the workplace, and the way to achieve this is by spreading awareness of queer culture to non-queer employees. Insensitivity, fear, and hate are the main issues that queer employees face at their jobs, and Bergh believes that this discrimination can be eliminated, or at least lessened, if employees are aware of how

Individuals, workplaces, and organizations that openly support queer rights are often devalued by society, thought of as unprofessional and losing any respect they may have. Since no one will listen to marginalized groups directly, having these spokespeople is vitally important to the queer community, but it defeats the purpose if they are ignored anyway. There are a few groups that manage to avoid being discredited, but their activism usually applies to exclusively white, assimilating, middle-class queers. This focus on these specific queer people is counterproductive, as it further stigmatizes those who choose to be themselves instead of conforming to societal norms. It also shows how, even within a progressive mindset, some queer people will always be worse off thanks to the multi-dimensionality of queer

People that stay closeted with their sexual orientations often suffer at work, either too distracted by hiding their identity to focus or made extremely uncomfortable due to the assumptions by coworkers that they are heterosexual. On the other hand, those who come out are subjected to harassment, degradation, and overcompensation by coworkers to accept them, again making it hard to be a productive employee. Willis also notes that “coming out” is not a one time thing, as every stranger a queer person meets will assume them to be heterosexual. A queer person constantly drifts in and out of the closet, and this is more than enough to distract queer employees from doing their jobs efficiently. This is proof of the assumptions that straight people hold about queer inequality, and how inaccurate these assumptions are. Despite the common belief that an individual’s decision to stay closeted will help them gain inequality, the structural factor of heteronormativity leaves even closeted queer people worse off than straight